Post Of The Week – Saturday February 17th, 2018

A crucial claim of Elizabeth Loftus’ research is that it is possible to manipulate testimony and to implant false memories. We look at some of her research here. A problem with this research is that the memories which are implanted and manipulated seem trivial in comparison with the court cases to which this research is supposed to relate. This article looks at research by Julia Shaw and Stephen Porter. You can see a piece of video about it here.

The dispute here concerns the way in which responses have been coded. Research by Kimberley Wade and colleagues suggests that fewer than the 70% of participants on Shaw and Porter’s study could properly be said to have false memories of a serious event. The question this article raises is how important this is.

2) Crash Course Statistics

Crash Course is running a statistics course at the moment. I dipped into a couple of them and they seem pretty good. They are here.

and

3) The End Of Sleep?

This article looks at methods being used to reduce the need to sleep. The idea is that by changing the way we move through the sleep cycle so that people get to deep sleep more quickly, it is possible to enable people to sleep for less time and get the same benefits. The article examines both the techniques being used to achieve this and the implications it may have.

4) Working Memory

When we study working memory, we look at how working memory is tested in order to identify children with poor working memories who may be struggling in school. This article looks at the opposite problem. People with strong working memories freeze under pressure, perhaps because they are a bit too aware of that pressure.

5) A Couple On Depression

There has been a lot of publicity about anti-depressants over the past few weeks. This piece is sensible and measured. This podcast focuses on CBT for depression and for a variety of disorders. It is sensible and authoritative.